"Captain, should we make a move?"
Drake, who knew his captain's personality all too well, was already cracking his knuckles in anticipation. There was no way Bellamy would pass up a Sea King this large right in front of them.
"Go ahead," Bellamy confirmed. "Just grab the tail. We can't eat any more than that, and we don't have much salt left on the ship. A single leg is more than enough for us."
Drake nodded and, to Heracles's utter astonishment, began his Allosaurus transformation, shifting into a tyrannosaur over ten meters tall.
"ROAR!"
He let out a low growl and carefully maneuvered around the scattered vines, slowly approaching the sea lion's tail.
Just who are these people? Heracles thought, feeling as though he had stumbled upon something extraordinary. He glanced at Bellamy, then at Drake in his full dinosaur form. Every single one of them was terrifyingly strong. He then looked at Ross and the others. If they were all this powerful, it was truly a frightening thought.
However, Heracles's assumption was incorrect. The two he had just seen in action were, in fact, the two strongest members of the Bellamy Pirates.
Bound tightly by the thorny vines, the sea lion couldn't move an inch. Drake lunged forward, his claws swiping viciously, tearing a massive gash in the sea lion's tail. Blood gushed out like a fountain, and the sea lion let out a pained roar, beginning to struggle frantically.
But it was useless.
The vines only tightened their grip, crushing it until it could no longer move. Under the relentless assault of Drake's claws, it wasn't long before a several-hundred-meter-long tail was severed from the Sea King's body.
"Heracles, where do you think would be a suitable place for us to live?" The coast was clearly not a good option. Bellamy was here for special training, and he couldn't afford to be on high alert twenty-four hours a day.
"We should go further inland," Heracles suggested. Beyond this carnivorous plant zone, there were many insect nests. Compared to the Sea Kings, these beetles posed a much smaller threat. Heracles himself lived near one of these nests.
Bellamy readily accepted the advice, immediately changing his original plan. "Then we'll build a house deep in the forest. Let's go." Today, they could have a proper feast to replenish their strength. Compared to a Sea King banquet, the cakes and roasted meats of the island were several tiers lower in quality.
With the help of a local native, Bellamy and his crew quickly settled down on the Boin Archipelago. A few days later, the sound of explosive booms began to echo intermittently from deep within the forest.
Deep in the forest, in a clearing pockmarked with craters.
"Use your full strength, damn it!"
"Full strength! Do you understand me?"
Bellamy stood to the side with his arms crossed, shouting harshly. The new training regimen had been underway for several days, but he was not at all satisfied with the current progress.
Having witnessed the cruelty of the sea, everyone was already training with extreme seriousness. But Bellamy was still not satisfied.
It was too slow. At this rate, how could they possibly hope to attack Dressrosa in a year? It wasn't just them; his own progress with Armament Haki was also incredibly slow. Although they had an endless supply of high-energy food and could occasionally supplement their diet with Sea King meat, Armament Haki was ultimately another manifestation of one's physical prowess. To achieve a visible increase in strength, he would need someone like Fujitora to help him.
This didn't align with the purpose of his painstaking journey here, but there was truly no better place for this. In a year, his Armament Haki would likely be able to cover half his body, which was far from enough to sustain him in a life-or-death battle. Especially when his opponent was Doflamingo. Bellamy had to find a faster way.
"Lord Bellamy, they're already working very hard," Heracles said, unable to watch any longer. Drake and the others were truly pushing themselves to the brink. They rested for less than four hours a day, waking up before dawn for weighted training that lasted late into the night. Aside from eating and sleeping, they had almost no time for rest.
This terrifying training method made Heracles inwardly scream at how insane it was. He had tried training with them for a few days and by the third day, he couldn't take it anymore. On the fourth morning, he could barely get out of bed. Even his physique, which was stronger than a bear's, couldn't handle it. One could only imagine the pressure the others were under. Mia and Muret, in particular, were already giving it their all just to keep up.
Yet, even with all this, Bellamy was still not satisfied.
"Heracles, you wouldn't understand," Bellamy said, his voice firm. The sweat they shed now in exhaustion would be the blood they shed on the battlefield later. If this were back in the North Blue, the two women would have gone on strike long ago. But look at them now; they were gritting their teeth and persevering. Their time drifting on the sea had truly made them grow.
"Keep training! No stopping!"
In truth, Bellamy knew they were already reaching their limits. To speed up their progress even more... did he really have to resort to a darker path?
I'll have to think of something else.
Bellamy did have a few other methods in mind, but their side effects were all extremely severe. If he didn't know of the existence of the Heal-Heal Fruit, he would never even consider such options.
This hesitation... it's not like me.
He was willing to risk his life, so what were a few side effects? There was a saying: those with nothing to lose have no fear. Was it because he now had something to lose that he was becoming more cautious?
Bellamy let out a self-deprecating laugh, and his resolve slowly hardened. Then it's decided.
"Mia, Muret, come over here for a moment."
He called the two women aside. "Have you found any peculiar plants recently?"
Mia and Muret shook their heads. They were so exhausted from training that their heads were spinning; they had no time to pay attention to any herbs.
"I have a mission for you," Bellamy said. "Spend a few hours each day analyzing the plants on this island and studying their medicinal properties."
Whether the plants growing on the Stomach Baron could be used for alchemy was something Bellamy wasn't sure of, but he had to try. Additionally, Heracles might be a great help in this matter.
Bellamy called Heracles over and asked about the distribution of plants on the island. As expected, he quickly got the information he wanted. On the southern part of the island grew some highly poisonous berries, and in the north, there were raspberries that made people incredibly excited after eating them. In the center of the island, there was a bottomless pit that emitted corrosive gas.
Besides that, some of the insects on the island were also poisonous. And the Sea Kings that occasionally washed ashore were sometimes venomous as well. If he wanted to obtain poison, it was quite easy on the Boin Archipelago.
Bellamy's plan was to use poison to forcibly stimulate the human body's potential—or more accurately, to coerce it. Such a radical method would inevitably cause great harm to their bodies, and might even affect their lifespans.
But so what? Living a safe life for a few hundred years was not what Bellamy wanted.
He would take the poison himself first. As for his crew, whether they chose to take it or not would be their own decision.